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Get started with PIX

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PIX is a debugging and profiling tool designed for game developers using Direct3D 12. You can debug rendering issues and analyze frame performance with GPU Captures, or you can take a more traditional profiling approach with Timing Captures.

PIX's CPU profiling capabilities work for any Windows application, and the GPU capabilities work on any application using Direct3D 12 (or Direct3D 11 via Direct3D 11 on 12). That includes AI and ML workloads using DirectML, and games made with popular engines such as Unreal, Unity, and Godot.

While PIX can help you with no prior setup, you might want to check out Instrument your app and Configure PIX to ensure that you have the best experience with things such as PixEvents and debug symbols.

Note

PIX is not intended to assist with Direct3D 12 API level issues, such as errors with compiling pipeline state objects. Instead, use GPU-based validation and the Direct3D 12 debug layer.

Installation

There are two ways to install PIX:

  • Install from Microsoft at the blog post Download.
  • Install via winget. Use the command winget install microsoft.pix.

For notifications on new releases, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for the PIX on Windows blog.

What next?

Depending on your goals, you can either:

Frequently-asked questions

  • How can I get help? For bug reports, questions, or any other feedback, you can either send us feedback through the application (using the Send Feedback button in the top-right; the icon is a broken heart), or by chatting with us in the pix channel of the DirectX Discord server.
  • What about the old documentation hosted on https://devblogs.microsoft.com/pix? We've learned over time that the devblog is not a good fit for product documentation. Moving the documentation to Microsoft Learn gives us the ability to provide a better documentation experience.